As a lifelong hunter, former employee of the NRA (and still a member despite their current challenges), diehard 2A supporter, concealed carry permit holder and author of a book on AR-15s, and now editor of TTAG, I simply have to laugh at some of the arguments I see on hunting and gun message boards as well as sometimes in our own comments section baring all the animosity between hardcore gun guys and longtime hunters. Some tactically or defensively minded gun guys are quick to judge anyone who hunts as someone who doesn’t understand the purpose of the Second Amendment, loves only old guns and revolvers and should be derogatorily called a Fudd. Likewise, I’ve seen my share of hunters—mostly old school dudes, not so much of the younger class of sportsmen—who don’t get why some of us dig hunting with modern sporting rifles or can’t understand why some so-called “tactards” want to simply crank shots off at paper targets and dream of the day they get to be in a defensive situation with their sidearm or AR.
It seems to me, all of us gun owners are kind of in this thing together with our love of shooting and firearms, regardless of what brings us to the table. God knows, there are enough antis out there trying to take ALL of our gun rights away, so it seems we have a hell of a lot more in common than we don’t.
Here’s a short video from the NSSF on just one such area where we are all in it together. And it’s a good thing, for anyone who buys a handgun or ammo in this country is helping to support—through excise taxes charged on the purchase of those items—conservation.
Conservation takes several forms, but with regard to excise taxes, it goes to state game departments to maintain public hunting lands, maintain healthy populations of game animals (you have to have something to hunt, as my daughter, when she was six once told a nosy anti-hunting woman pressing her on hunting in the aisle of a department store “of course you don’t shoot everything or you wouldn’t have anything else to hunt!”), support hunter recruitment and build and maintain public shooting ranges.
So, it seems, whether some of you like it or not, be ye a Fudd or a Tactard or like me, a good bit of both, we’re all in this together.
Next, we’ll all sing Kumbaya together. What do ya say?
